Drover’s Run is getting a change of postcode, with the McLeod’s Daughters reboot set to film in regional Victoria.
Creative Industries Minister Vicki Ward announced the move on 29 October. The new McLeod’s Daughters will be made by Werner Film Productions, the Melbourne company behind The Newsreader and Netflix’s Surviving Summer. To land it, the Victorian government tipped an extra $6 million into VicScreen’s Victorian Production Fund, and Nine Entertainment is along for the ride.
The original ran for eight seasons and 224 episodes on Nine between 2001 and 2009, and screened in more than 100 countries. Every bit of it was shot in South Australia, on a working property between Gawler and Freeling, north of Adelaide. This time the shoot stays almost entirely in regional Victoria, and nobody has picked the towns yet.
McLeod’s Daughters
- What: McLeod’s Daughters reboot
- Who: Werner Film Productions, with VicScreen and Nine Entertainment
- Where: regional Victoria, locations to be confirmed
- Location submissions: open now, closing 13 December 2026
- Economic impact: up to $35 million and up to 900 jobs
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
Anyone with a photogenic paddock can put their hand up. VicScreen has opened Starring Regional Victoria, a callout asking locals to send in photos of film-friendly spots for its locations directory. Farms, pubs, old churches, factories and sheds are all on the wish list, and so is the local servo. The callout is open to any future production, but it went live on the same day the McLeod’s Daughters search kicked off, so the timing isn’t subtle.
According to the government, the production will put up to $35 million into the state economy and create up to 900 jobs, with work flowing to local accommodation, hospitality and transport businesses. Emerging and mid-career screen workers will get placements and attachments on set as well.
New Deloitte Access Economics figures put Victoria’s screen sector at $3 billion and 21,100 full-time equivalent jobs in 2024–25. Film, TV and online production has grown 79% in real terms since 2018–19, and games jumped 103% over the same stretch. Whether audiences can actually find all that homegrown screen work is another question, and a recent report found Australians love local content but struggle to track it down.
“McLeod’s Daughters is one of our most-loved dramas, and Victoria is the perfect place to bring it back to life,” creative industries minister Vicki Ward said. “We’re backing local screen jobs and businesses, while One Nation would abolish VicScreen and shut the door on projects like this.”
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